payments | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Africa’s mobile payments shift

Somalia’s EVCPlus shows how African economies are adapting to the mobile economy

One of the greatest profitable accidents of the last twenty years was SMS messaging that delivered telecoms companies huge revenues for a service that cost them almost nothing.

In Somalia, we may be seeing phone companies leading the way in cashless transactions as the economy moves towards mobile payments on the back of service intended by one of the nation’s leading cellphone providers for a completely different purpose.

The Hormuud Telecommunication Company set up EVCPlus to deal with account payments but in an unstable and risky economy the service has proved an efficient way to deal with daily transactions

“It’s not safe to carry cash money here,” said Dhublawe Ibrahim Aden, 25, a hawker who sells shoes and clothes. “If someone has to buy my shoes and bungles [necklaces] then he has to pay me through my cellphone. I don’t accept cash money from clients.”

Like Kenya’s M-PESA, EVCPlus is showing how slower and more basic connections aren’t a barrier to African economies leading the world in some online services. Sometimes having access to basic services isn’t an impediment.

How banks will survive the fintech onslaught

Fintech startups threaten to disrupt the banking system but the banks are well placed to survive and prosper

Earlier this week the Financial Times reported how the eleven biggest North American and European banks had shed 100,000 jobs this year, so it when I was asked to do a segment on the future of banking for radio station ABC666 in Canberra I was more than delighted.

The ABC producer’s interest had been piqued by an Ovum research paper detailing the IT spending of banks and their increasing focus on security.

Rethinking payments

In Ovum’s view much of the banking industry’s security comes from the diverse range of payment options coming onto the marketplace. Another factor in the increased spend are the US credit cards moving to contactless payments.

Certainly the increased focus on payments security is being driven by the range of new devices with smartphones, wearable technologies and the Internet of Things opening up a whole new range of commercial channels. This is something driving the development of services like Apple’s and Google’s payment system and part of a wider battle over who controls those channels.

Underpinning much of the security focus is the interest in blockchain technologies which move the authentication records off central ledgers – historically one of the core functions of banking – onto a distributed network of databases.

Core challenges

That shift in record keeping is just one of changes affected the banking industry’s core functions, crowd funding and peer to peer lending threaten to displace banks from being the main providers of business capital, one of the fundamental reasons for the banking sectors existence.

It should be noted though the banks have largely stepped away from being the providers of small business capital over recent decades as the ill conceived ‘reforms’ of the 1980s and 90s saw the finance sector being more focused on housing lending and doing mega M&A deals with the big end of town.

The Financial Times report notes a decline in M&A deals is one of the drivers for the staff lay offs at the major banks, it’s notable that technology is changing that business function as much of the due diligence can be better done by artificial intelligence and algorithms rather than highly paid corporate lawyers and bankers.

Where have the bankers gone?

As the banks lay off senior staff, it’s notable many are finding their way to fintech companies. The Wall Street Journal however describes the relationship between incumbent banks and their would be disrupters as far more complex than it seems.

Increasingly banks are buying or taking stakes in promising startups along with establishing their own investment arms and running hackathons to identify potential disruptors. Many in the banking industry are quite aware of the changes happening.

That the banks are adopting the new technologies and identifying the threats shouldn’t be surprising, over the past fifty years the sector has been adept at applying technology from batch processing on mainframe computers through to deploying Automatic Teller Machines and rolling out credit cards to improve their business operations. Banking is one sector that’s proved itself fast to identify and adopt technological changes.

Are the banks going away?

So with fintech startups snapping at their heels, is it likely today’s banks are heading for extinction? Probably not suggests the CEO of fintech startup Currency Cloud, Mike Laven who describes such talk as being part of the “Level 39 bubble”, referring to the financial services startup hub based in London’s Canary Wharf.

Laven’s view is some banks will evolve while others won’t do so well and historically that’s what we’ve seen with other technological shifts – some of the incumbents adapt and reinvent themselves while others are not so adept and wither away.

Some of the bigger threats to banking may be social and economic change. Today’s rising of interest rates by the US Federal Reserve may mark the end of the last decade’s ‘free money’ mentality that’s been so profitable for them in recent times. The end of the consumerist era also challenges those financial institutions basing their business models on a never ending growth of consumer spending and household debt.

Almost certainly the banking industry is not going to vanish, however it is going to be a very different – most definitely a much leaner – beast in a few years time. What is certain though is the days of banks as we’ve known them in the second half of the Twentieth Century are undergoing dramatic change in the face of technological and social change.

Stripe joins the unicorns

Payments company Stripe takes a big step with its investment from credit card giant Visa

Payment service Stripe joins the unicorn club as credit card company Visa becomes the latest investor reports the Re/Code website.

Two years ago this site interviewed John Collison, one of the Irish twins who founded Stripe about their mission to bring the payments industry in the 21st Century.

With the Visa investment it now means two of the world’s three major credit card companies are investors in Stripe, the other being American Express, and this shows the incumbent players are acutely aware of the changes happening in the payments world.

That credit card companies are investing in the businesses that threaten to disrupt their industry indicates the incumbents’ savvy management; while there are cultural and ethical barriers in trying to undercut the existing profitable products, having a stake in the new competitors gives companies like Visa and AmEx to remain relevant in a post credit card world.

For Stripe, investment from what could have been their major competitors not only takes some of the pressure off the the business but also opens opportunities for technology sharing and access to bigger markets.

Probably the most important thing for Strip with the Amex and Visa investments is they legitimise the business and the entire payments startup sector. It’s an important vote of confidence in the technologies and market.

For the Collison twins it also helps build better businesses, as John told Decoding the New Economy two years ago, “if we just building a business to take transactions from PayPal and get them onto Stripe, that’s not that interesting. What is interesting is if we can create new types of transactions that would not have existed otherwise.”

“By providing better infrastructure for anyone to build a global business. That will change the kind of things people will build.”

Now more people will be looking at what they can build on these payment platforms.

Apple looks dangerous in the payment wars

Apple Pay is making big gains in the online space, however the battle is far from over.

Apple are making great gains in the online payment space but the battle with Google Android, PayPal and the banks to control the market is far from over.

One of the biggest business struggles this blog has been watching for the last five years is the battle over payment systems as banks, credit card companies, telcos and technologies vendors have jostled for control of what will probably the world’s most lucrative market by the end of the decade.

Apple were late to that fight with their Pay service only being released a few months ago however according to a report by ITG Investment Apple’s service is already ahead of PayPal in terms of usage among new adopters.

While PayPal have an impressive range of technologies, it’s clear they have found themselves wrong footed by Apple and have new companies like Stripe also challenging their market position.

Apple Pay may be getting the headlines, but at present Google Android still dominates the mobile commerce industry according to another research company Criteo.

In their State of Mobile Commerce report, Criteo claims that globally Android is well ahead in smartphone transactions. An interesting aspect of Criteo’s report is how far behind many nations such as Japan, South Korea and Germany the United States is in the take up of mobile commerce.

Criteo’s report shows the battle to control the e-commerce space is far from over, however if Apple Pay can grab a large chunk of the payments market then the company will have a strong hold on key part of global industry. It remains a high stakes and uncertain battle.

The mobile payments industry has a USB moment

Could the Apple Pay experience be similar to the development of the computer USB port?

Has Apple Pay legitimised mobile payments? It appears so, reports the New York Times. Since the launch of Apple’s payments service, Google and other mobile payment providers are claiming usage has doubled with customers exploring the systems.

If this is true, it’s similar to how Apple legitimised the USB port in 1998 with the release of the iMac.

Prior to the iMac the USB port was a bit of an oddity, on most PCs the sockets sat unused and the few devices available on Windows computers worked reliably, as Bill Gates himself found out during a live demonstration at the 1998 Comdex show.

Unlike Apple Pay, the move to USB on Macs wasn’t welcome and it was a high stakes decision by Steve Jobs given that Apple’s existence was still precarious and its user base was still made up of largely of true believers who had been through years in the wilderness with the company.

Those users also had many thousands of dollars invested in Apple Device Bus (ADB) devices, all of which became redundant with the move to USB. Many customers at the time swore this was the last straw and they would move to Windows PCs.

Apple’s users didn’t carry out their threats and stayed with the company whose move to USB turned out to be a winner for the entire computer industry.

For Apple USB’s success meant their customers were no longer locked into a proprietary technology, for manufacturers they were able to start moving off archaic serial and parallel ports while for Microsoft the shift meant a better range of more reliable devices — although their operating systems struggled with USB until the release of the far more stable Windows XP.

It appears in this respect Apple Pay is repeating history in giving a boost to a technology that has been struggling to find traction in the market place.

The difference this time is that the payments industry is a far bigger market with far more implications for the broader economy than the computer peripherals segment.

If Apple raise the boat on payment systems, there are some incumbent businesses who are going to find themselves in a very different marketplace in five years time.

Old business and new tech

When old businesses embrace new tech they have to be thinking of their customers’ problems, not theirs.

The payments war has been well and truly on as companies like Stripe, Apple and PayPal battle it out to control the next generation of currency.

One of the more hapless bystanders in this has been the CurrentC consortium, a group of US retailers set up to take advantage of mobile technology and bypass merchant fees.

This weekend news leaked out that some of the consortium members have disabled Near Field Communications functions in their store Point of Sale systems to prevent Apple Pay and Google Wallet from working while they wait to roll out CurrentC.

In a deep dive review of CurrentC, Tech Crunch looks at how the service works and its limitations. One of the things that jumps out in Tech Crunch’s review is just how cumbersome the system is compared to its competitors.

Despite being founded in 2011 and having the backing of some of America’s biggest companies, CurrentC is two, or possibly three, iterations behind other services which illustrates the problem of incumbents trying to innovate their way out of problems.

No doubt the committee model of CurrentC hasn’t helped the development process along with the aim being addressing the consortium’s fixation with merchant fees rather than making things easier for customers.

It’s hard not to conclude that CurrentC is doomed and the actions of retailers in blocking competitor’s products is only staving off the inevitable. When old businesses embrace new tech they have to be thinking of their customers’ problems, not theirs.

Facebook becomes the storefront

Facebook’s Buy Now feature could be the future of social media and ecommerce

Last week payments service Stripe confirmed they had partnered with Facebook to power the social media platform’s ‘buy now’ feature.

The buy now button concept ads a button to posts, either sponsored or organic, in a user’s feed which lets them purchase the product being mentioned. This could be a powerful call to action for those advertising on Facebook and a potentially substantial revenue stream for the social media service.

Late last month Stripe co-founder John Collison spoke to Decoding the New Economy about the evolution of online payments and Facebook’s role in the industry.

“We’ve seen Facebook’s announcement a little while back that they’re letting you pay with your Facebook credentials. You can have a little ‘buy with Facebook’ button and if your card details are on file with Facebook then you don’t have to fill out all your details.”

Stripe’s strategic advantage

At the time Collison wasn’t letting on just how integral his company would be to Facebook’s payment services and coupled with company’s privileged position with Apple Pay, Stripe seems to be in a leading position with some of the biggest and well positioned players in an industry that’s being turned upside down.

Those changes are good news for business as I wrote for Technology Spectator last week with the increased competition in the sector is making it easier for new companies to enter their markets.

Making it easier for new entrants is something that drives Stripe’s Collison; “I think one of the things that’s held back online commerce for so long is there is such a high barrier to it and so if you go to a coffee shop and you pay for your coffee — you swipe your card and that’s that.”

Letting businesses sell more

“It seems to me that in five to ten years time we will not be in the same world where people like Facebook and Google are improving the identity story,” continued Collison. “This is exciting because it means merchants can sell more.”

The integration of Buy Now into Facebook’s services also indicates a different direction for social media services beyond being the passive marketing platforms many see them as being today.

It may well be that social media platforms are more the storefront than the billboard.

This is not toy time

A podcast with Profitable Hospitality’s Ken Burgin on payments and the hospitality industry

We’re past the time where business owners can dismiss new technologies as toys says Profitable Hospitality’s Ken Burgin.

Ken’s Profitable Hospitality website is a must read for anybody in the industry and I was lucky enough to be the the guest of his 99th podcast where we discussed payment systems, marketing and the challenges facing restaurant and cafe operators in a changing marketplace.

In the podcast we discuss PayPal’s plans for the retail sector along with how startups like Stripe look to disrupt the sector and what Apple’s announcements last week will mean to the payments industry.

The key message from the podcast is the entire sector is facing massive changes both from technology and changing consumer behaviour.

Like many other industries, the successful restaurant and cafe businesses over the next decade will be those who have the flexibility to adapt to a very different world.

Time to strike deals

It’s time to strike deals as banks and other big businesses start to feel the effects of global competition

It didn’t take long for the competition in the payments market to heat up after the announcement of Apple Pay last week as PayPal launched a campaign asking if you’d trust your financials to a business who can’t protect your selfies.

While PayPal pokes fun at Apple, there are more serious competitive pressures developing as the companies start negotiating with credit card providers and banks to reduce their rates. This is something that will be an immediate benefit for businesses of all sizes who are prepared to renegotiate their contracts.

Most businesses, big and small, are poor at monitoring what they pay for a service; while they’ll shop around and negotiate when they’re looking for provider, they’ll let often these contracts go for years without reviewing them – something that utilities like banks, telcos and power companies take advantage of.

I was reminded of this earlier this week at a lunch with some senior Qantas accountants who were quite open about how every supplier’s contract was constantly reviewed and discounts were aggressively pursued. It’s a tough life for the airline’s subcontractors.

Times are tough for Qantas though, having sustained a 2.8 billion Aussie dollar loss last year along with constant declines in market share and stock prices. So it’s not surprising they have an aggressive cost cutting strategy in place.

Many other industries are now looking at the same problem as the global economy is now in a phase of at best anemic growth for the foreseeable future, which makes it essential for all businesses to start reviewing their costs.

With the banking sector now being disrupted by companies like PayPal and Apple, it might be time for all businesses to ask some hard questions of their banks and payment providers. The time is right to strike a deal.

Activating main street

PayPal lays out its vision of the future of retail

The future of retail is being fought out on three fronts believes eBay’s Michael Camplin — global, local, mobile and data.

At eBay’s Commerce Innovation Showcase at its San Jose head office Champlin shows visiting partners, media and government officials part of the payments giant’s vision for that future.

“It’s about connecting buyers and sellers across the globe,” says Champlin. “Local is important for us because even with the growth of the online ecommerce revolution that we’re in the middle of right now we still see 75% of commerce happens within fifty miles of the customer and 90% of that happens in bricks-and-mortar stores.”

“So to be able to connect buyers and sellers in those local stores is a major push we have at eBay.”

The first presentation in the tour demonstrates a day in the life of an eBay customer from the bedroom of a fictional customer, Reese McLaren, a funky young guy shopping for new equipment ahead of a camping trip. Champlin illustrates how Reese can order, pay and collect through a store’s integrated online service from his home.

On the other side of the transactions, store employees use the PayPal apps like Red Lazer and Braintree to complete the order. A key part of that is using beacon technologies to log a customer into the store to alert staff that a customer has arrived to collect an order.

At the next stage of the tour, we visit some demonstration stores; first we start with the Burger Bistro where eBay’s Eric Armstrong shows how restaurant’s point of sale system is integrated with PayPal services, showing waitstaff who is logged in through the company’s app.

Integrating PayPal’s services into the establishment’s point of sale system means customers can order through the PayPal Wallet service and waitstaff know if a customer has paid through the app.

The app also speeds up settling customers’ bills as diners can pay the check through their phone and not bother with using cash or swiping credit cards.

One key point with PayPal Wallet is that users can enter any payment form that suits them and choose whichever option suits them at the time including direct bank transfers and credit cards.

Another area that PayPal are pushing out are coupon offers. At present the company is subsidising them as they test how the services work. The objective is to offer a digital equivalent of everything people currently have in their wallets.

For staff, eBay are offering the ability to bring your own device for point of sale systems with cloud base apps turning staffs’ tablets and smartphones into POS terminals.

Tying into the Point of Sale capability is the PayPal Now service that allows establishments to swipe credit cards directly into the app through a dongle that reads the chip or stripe. Despite the rise of online payment services, swiping credit cards is still the main way US customers pay their bills.

Despite the continued popularity of credit cards, eBay are hoping to move customers over to the online services through ease of service; the one stop authentication service means customers are logged into the payment platform as soon as they check into a location.

One area PayPal sees great opportunity in stadiums and major events where attendees automatically check in and can then access food and souvenir stands without having to re-authenticate or authorise each purchase they make.

A key part of eBay’s retail strategy is the use of beacons to monitor customers entering establishments. The one illustrated is the PayPal beacon that was a limited release earlier this year. The device doesn’t have its own battery, instead relying on a USB socket for power.

Two weeks after this tour Apple launched its Pay service with its range of integrated APIs to offer many of things shown in this showcase. eBay and its Braintree subsidiary was conspicuously missing from the listed partners.

For PayPal and eBay the field has suddenly become more competitive, this is a sector that is now at the forefront of the battle between today’s internet empires.

Changing the payments industry

The effects of Apple Pay are being felt by the payments industry

It didn’t take long for the effects of Apple’s payment service to be felt by the industry, within a day of the announcement Bloomberg reported Apple is negotiating with US banks to shift transaction fees from merchants.

At the same time Bank Innovation reports the major credit card companies are considering changing the definition of ‘cardholder present’ rules which would make app based purchases cheaper.

The changes Apple Pay is bringing in is part of a wider move to easier, frictionless commerce as Stripe co-founder John Collison discussed on this site last week.

For the banks and credit card companies this means a very different operating environment. What was once a very profitable business is now changing rapidly and profits may not be so easy to come by.

Apple and the long game

Apple’s real game is in controlling a large part of the payments industry and the internet of things. The iPhone6 and watch are key steps in that strategy.

As expected, Apple announced their new range of iPhones and a smart watch today with many digital trees being felled as the tech media falls over to describe all the shiny features of the new devices.

Buried in Apple’s announcements though are the company’s real long game in payments and the Internet of Things.

For the IoT, the various ‘kits’ Apple have announced in the last year — HomeKit, HealthKit and now CloudKit — are the serious plays in this space as they bundle together programs, devices and data streams across health and smarthome applications.

CloudKit moves Apple onto another level as it makes it easier for developers to build back end applications that tie into smart devices; even if someone isn’t using Apple equipment they still may find themselves firmly in the walled garden of Cuptertino.

The long awaiting release of Apple Pay leverages iTunes’ strength as a payment platform, bundling a secure chip into the new iPhone adds to the company’s pitch of being a trusted partner to merchants and payments processors.

What today’s announcements of new hardware, software and APIs indicate is Apple’s shoring up the perimeters of its walled garden.

For it’s competitors, this raises the ante; Google Wallet has nothing like the market penetration or customer acceptance that iTunes has and earlier this week Amazon effectively admitted the Fire smartphone has been a failure by slashing prices. Facebook has made promising noises about payments but still remains locked in an advertising driven business model.

While there’s no doubt the new iPhone will be a success, although the jury is out on the smart watch, Apple’s real game is in controlling a large part of the payments industry and the internet of things. Today’s announcements are a key step in that strategy.